by Peter Twitchell
Life as we all know is stressful even at home. We could be without a job but helping family anyway, we can be doing things for family who come first in our life. We may have retired, we may have worked and earned a good living during our career as servants of our state or community.
When we were younger many of us worked more than two jobs to make ends meet and to take care of family. When we retire from our jobs, usually in our mid-60s, we try to do something helpful and positive – perhaps making a hot steam and inviting our elder friends. Revisiting and remembering good things we’ve done in our lives and we feel good about our accomplishments.
Our accomplishments could include our families, our life partners, children and grandchildren, and our subsistence way of life: fishing, camping, berry picking, hunting, spring camps, gathering food for our families to enjoy.
As we get into our elderly years we depend more and more on our younger generation friends and family to provide many of our subsistence foods. I know when I was younger I gave away my first catches of fish, geese and cranes, moose meat, seal meat and seal blubber, which are considered a delicacy, as whale blubber is in the Arctic Region.
As a result of our efforts to share our food from the tundra and rivers, we have a feeling of great satisfaction and accomplishment in providing for Elders who are no longer able to hunt.
We took action in the direction we were going in life to help our people and families. This is something concrete: being thankful and grateful to be alive. This is a great benchmark, a positive path on our journey we chose to take.
We can be of servitude to others if we ourselves are healthy: mentally, physically, and in how we feel about ourselves and others well-being even through the most difficult personal struggles in our life. We manage to accomplish something positive and good.
You will feel good if you list all the good things that you have accomplished in your lifetime. If you write these accomplishments and benchmarks down you will remember and feel good about what you’ve done with your time here.
It’s OK to voice and tell your children and grandchildren and your friends and family something that they can treasure and learn from. It’s OK to change the course on your journey in life if you feel you’re heading down the wrong direction. It’s never too late to change.
